Criticism-in-finity!
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Apr 25th, 2012
When I was coming up we only called it “gentrification” and even then it was code. What it stood for was first described in economic terms: growing property values, higher rents, rising food costs, and increases in local tax revenues. Then in terms of safety: drops in crime rates, arrests, and even reports of suspicious [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Apr 18th, 2012
There were things people forgot to tell me. The retired minister would openly critique my breasts as I brought him food. No girls wanted to serve him. (Only girls worked there.) A local realtor was fascinated by his shoe, which he often thought was his pet, and more fascinated by counting by tens very quickly. [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Apr 11th, 2012
Despite what some may tell you, a hipster invasion is generally a wonderful thing. When the hipsters arrive, property values skyrocket, charcuteries and cheese shops pop up and a tattoo-parlor scene develops. The bars in the neighborhood start selling an incredible selection of boutique local beers and have burlesque shows on weekends. Cupcake stores become [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Mar 21st, 2012
#1: Music drifts from the clubhouse, pings carry from the driving range. Ahead, a strange landscape: wilderness that is not wilderness; everything leafy and beautifully green, everything manicured, cut, chopped. #2: This is not quite a park, not quite a garden. It is not quite a place to be discovered, not quite natural or unnatural, [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Aug 11th, 2011
I moved into my apartment without meeting any of my roommates. I did not know then that the phrase “that’s classic Luis” would soon enter my vocabulary. When he broke our only trivet the other day, that was classic Luis. He broke all of our plates and now we’re down to two. A while back, [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Aug 8th, 2011
The Decision: to run a marathon. To commit months of training, log the miles, ice the legs, tape together graying toenails, stretch the just-discovered intercostal muscles. To look in the mirror reflecting a body, at last, conquered. But what about conquering the mind? Because running a marathon demands one formed so differently from the gelatinous [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Apr 25th, 2011
Dear Cutefluff, This is an issue of ownership. I’m well aware that when it’s dark you sit under my car still warm for hours. Bravely, you prance on tiny kitty paws through my yard and use my bushes for your dirty little kitty doings. When I come home tired, I prepare my dinner, most nights [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Apr 20th, 2011
I’d like to pretend that I came out of the womb with a fully formed appreciation for single-malt scotches and cask-aged ales, but I didn’t; didn’t drink in high school, didn’t really drink in college until I was of legal age (although there is a sad freshman incident with Guinness, which at 18 I believed [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Feb 2nd, 2011
Not all teas are created equal. Take Tetley’s Green Tea with Lemon, whose taste is described as “an ugly light starved moth … excreted from the behind of an ill cat.” No. Not equal. Not all of them. If you’re in search of a tea for the finer palette, might I humbly suggest Celestial Seasonings’ [...]
Posted in Replies & Rebuttals on Jun 1st, 2010
(Or, with apologies to Kevin O’Rourke, why you shouldn’t “imagine life uncluttered by the dramas of cooking times, seasonings, even taste”) Because you like clutter and chaos, salt and adventure. Because the first time you cook with the man who will become your husband, you make pasta from scratch as a storm gathers outside. Because [...]